Fair Equality of Opportunity and Educati 2

Fair Equality of
Opportunity and
Education.
Master Thesis Philosophy
Name: Olia Fjodorowa, MSc.

S983504
Olia.fjodorowa@gmail.com
Supervisor: Prof. Alan Thomas
Second reader: Prof. Hans Lindahl
Date: 14 June 2012
Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 2
2. The theory of a Rawlsian egalitarian society..................................................................................... 4
2.1 From the original position to the two principles of justice. ....................................................... 4
2.2 The two principles of justice as fairness. ................................................................................... 8
2.3 Property owning democracy................................................................................................... 12
3. Fair equality of opportunity and education. ................................................................................... 16
3.1 Actual demands of fair equality of opportunity principle on society. ...................................... 16
3.2 The importance of education for the FEO principle................................................................. 18
3.3 An alternative: education under the Difference principle. ...................................................... 21
3.4 A modest proposition on resource distribution in education. ................................................. 24
3.5 Ongoing fair access to education under the FEO principle. ..................................................... 28
4. Education in property-owning democracy. ..................................................................................... 34
5. Conclusion. .................................................................................................................................... 38
6. Literature List: ............................................................................................................................... 41
1
1. Introduction.
John Rawls spend his life envisioning an ideal of a society where free and equal citizens would
be cooperating with each other within an egalitarian economic system. According to Rawls
liberty and egalitarianism could be united under what he called “justice as fairness”.
In his book, A Theory of Justice, Rawls explains how under the conditions of a “veil of
ignorance”, the representatives of all social-economic and cultural groups in a society will
choose the principles according to which their society should be organized. The veil of
ignorance blocks all of the representatives’ knowledge about their individual identity and hence
that of the groups they represent. This ensures that the representatives act in a way that
expresses the values of freedom and equality. Their individual motivation is to reason prudently
and with mutual indifference. That which each of them chooses within the model of the
original position are a set of governing principles that, in fact, will be fair. But the parties in the
original position do not choose them on that basis. This incorporates Rawls’s central insight that
fair social choice under conditions of full knowledge can be modeled by individual prudential
choice under conditions of ignorance. In the original position, the representatives will not treat
unjustly some group of people, as they themselves could unknowingly be part of that group.
The two principles that will be chosen in the original position under the condition of veil of
ignorance are according to Rawls:
First Principle: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal
basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all;
Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:
a. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity;
2
b. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(the difference principle).
In this paper I will be focusing on the condition of “fair equality of opportunity” (FEO) that is
part of the principle 2a. Fair equality of opportunity requires that the conditions in a society
must be such that those with equal talent, and who make equal effort, have the same chances
of occupying advantageous positions and offices. But Rawls does not advocate “careers open to
talents” or a form of meritocracy, as I will argue later. Instead, he argues for increased
investments in education and providing an opportunity to all citizens to develop themselves
and their talents maximally. In this paper, I will argue that what the FEO principle requires is in
effect fair ongoing access to higher education. The idea is that all citizens would be provided
with vouchers which can be used to pay for higher education, and which can be used regardless
of the stage of life that the citizen is in.
Additionally, Rawls claimed that the ideal society constructed according to his principles –
thereby satisfying the requirements imposed by fair equality of opportunity – would be a
property owning democracy, or property owning democracy with a mixture of market
socialism. Both these forms of societies have in common a high dispersion of capital and as
equal as possible a distribution of real access to capital among its citizens.
Capital also includes human capital such as skills and education. In our modern society, citizens’
face constraints when it comes to obtaining the education that should provide them with fair
equality of opportunity. For example, in the Netherlands one can only obtain a government
scholarship if the person is below 30 years of age. Even in an ideal society, there are a lot of
reasons to limit accessibility of education to young people, such as considerations of efficiency.
However, I will argue that Rawlsian condition of fair equality of opportunity requires that
citizens have an ongoing access to education as means to boost their human capital. Further, I
will argue that human capital is a very good way of ensuring proper capital dispersion in
3
property-owning democracy. This means that someone who is 80 years old should have the
same right and opportunities to education as someone who is only 18 years old.
The rest of this paper is set-up as follows: in Chapter 2 I will examine the egalitarian society that
Rawls outlines in his work. In Chapter 3 I will focus on the FEO principle and argue that proper
application of the FEO principle demands fair ongoing access to education. In Chapter 4 I will
argue for the same thing only from the point of view of property-owning democracy (POD)
where human capital can play a crucial part. Chapter 5 will provide the conclusion of this paper.
2. The theory of a Rawlsian egalitarian society.
In this chapter I will discuss John Rawls’s theory for an ideal egalitarian society. I will also
discuss the most important concepts in that theory and will try to provide a clear understanding
of its key terms. The main focus will be on the two principles of justice as fairness, which will be
discussed in chapters 2.1 and 2.2. In Chapter 2.3 I will turn to the discussion of property owning
democracy as the most likely candidate to implement a society that is fair according to Rawls’s
conception of justice.
2.1 From the original position to the two principles of justice.
When creating the blueprint of constitutional design of an ideal society Rawls has two concerns.
First, the society should reflect the fact that all its members are free and equal individuals, and
deserve to be respected as such. Second, the economic society is a cooperative venture for
mutual advantage between all its citizens, in which each citizen contributes to the well-being of
the entire society and all its members.
4
In order to create a society which properly reflects both of these aspects, Rawls introduces a
hypothetical thought experiment. In this experiment the reader is asked to imagine himself or
herself as a representative of their own social-economic group. For example, I would be the
representative of all female students with low income. Then Rawls places all representatives
behind a “veil of ignorance”.
The veil of ignorance is a construct within the thought experiment that places the
representatives behind a veil, separating them from their knowledge of themselves and of the
society they already live in. Behind the veil, they forget their age, gender, social-economic
status, race, talents, IQ, religion, dreams and so on as these characteristics are irrelevant from
the point of view of justice. All that the representatives know is that they represent some kind
of social-economic group in the society (but have no idea which). What they also know is that
they and their fellow representatives are all free and equal citizens that will have to cooperate
with each other in a single society.
These representatives know that the society they live in is subject to moderate scarcity. This
means that there are sufficient goods so that nobody has to starve, but there are not enough
goods to allow all people to have everything they have ever wanted. They also know that in
their society, many different people have many different conceptions about what it is like to
lead a good life. They do not know what those conceptions are and if the society is fairly
homogenous when it comes to those conceptions (for example if there is a dominant religion),
or if those conceptions are very diverse and disperse (many different religions without a single
one of them dominating the society).
The representatives are asked to decide on the basic principles that will govern their society.
Once they chose, the veil will be lifted and the choice they have made becomes irrevocable.
Rawls says that when placed in such a situation, I will be rather cautious when voting for some
principle that will irrevocably disadvantage any social group. For example, choosing a society
where women have to obey men in all cases might lead to a fairly high average utility (assuming
5
that all men will be a lot happier than women would be unhappy since they would not know
any better anyway, and humans tend to become content with their fate after awhile) still has a
50% chance to go very wrong for me. After all, there is approximately 50% chance that it will
turn out that I am a woman once the veil is lifted. As Rawls has predicted, I would not vote for
such a proposal. Even if the chances (which we cannot reasonably estimate, not knowing the
composition of our society) are fairly low that I would turn out to be a slave for example, I
would still be very unhappy with the possibility of being a slave for the rest of my life and will
not vote for a principle allowing this to happen.
It is worth bearing in mind, when assessing this assumption of risk aversion, that we are not
discussing here “one off” gambles. The justice, or otherwise, of the basic structure of society is
the context in which all of a person’s individual decisions will be made over the course of a
lifetime and has a fundamental impact on one’s life prospects.
If I were to choose principles governing my society, I know that I would choose something that
will allow me to improve my situation if I will happen to be very unlucky in life. Where initial
luck fails, hard work and determination may do the job as well. Rawls suggests that the other
representatives will think in a similar fashion and will first choose to ensure their positions as
free and equal citizens.
The representatives will chose in such a way as to ensure their basic liberties first, such as
freedom of religion, the right to vote and protection from bodily harm. Without these basic
liberties, it will be very hard for people to pursue their own ideas of happiness and good life.
This first choice is reflected in the first principle proposed by Rawls:
First Principle: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal
basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all;
6
Then the representatives will move on to consider the inequalities in income and other primary
goods, such as health and opportunities, which will arise due to differences between physical
and mental abilities between people.
Rawls asks us to imagine a hypothetical initial arrangement in which all primary goods are
equally shared: a situation of baseline equality. Every person has similar rights and duties, as
well as equal income and opportunities. According to Rawls this arrangement can serve as a
benchmark against which any improvements with added inequalities can be judged.
Furthermore, those who have a veto on any departure from baseline equality are those who
will become the worst off in any new distribution, since they are the ones who have most to
lose, not only in terms of material goods but also in terms of self-respect.
While Rawls did not have a firsthand experience with communism or other extreme forms of
egalitarianism, he lived during the period of Cold War and the debates around it. One of the
arguments against communism and its ideal of equally shared goods is that without
inequalities, people become unmotivated to attempt to improve their own lives. When effort
and pay are completely unrelated to each other, there are no incentives to work hard.
Inequalities due to among others hard work are permissible, and Rawlsian theory strives to
show which inequalities are permissible and in what manner.
Rawls argues that the only way in which inequalities will be just is if every representative,
knowing that the society they construct will be one that their offspring will live in as well, will
chose a form of society with inequalities rather than one without them. Rawls thinks that it is
irrational to remain at the position of baseline equality if the worst off members in society, who
have most to lose, would agree to a society with inequalities, if they would be better off there.
He writes:
7
“This means that it must be reasonable for each relevant representative man defined by this
structure, when he views it as a going concern, to prefer his prospects with the inequality to his
prospects without it”.1
The representatives in the original position will chose the following principle according to Rawls
to deal with inequalities in their society:
Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:
a. They are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair
equality of opportunity
b. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society
(the difference principle)
The two principles combined should ensure that every member of society should have
sufficient base for self-respect, which Rawls considers to be very important, as well as allow
people to pursue their own ideas about good life. The guiding thought here is that in a Rawlsian
society no-one is any worse off than he or she needs to be.
2.2 The two principles of justice as fairness.
I will now look at the two principles in more detail, focusing on the fair equality of opportunity
principle in particular.
Rawls presents his theory of justice as a direct challenge to utilitarianism, which he sees as the
biggest threat to justice and basic liberties. His basic objection to utilitarianism is that the
distribution produced by maximizing utility could mean violations of the basic individual
1
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 1.11: Two Principles of Justice, Harvard
University Press, p 56
8
liberties, which ought to be protected by social justice. Rawls writes: “each person possesses an
inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override”2. He
argues that our most basic rights and liberties should not depend on changeable social facts
such as the interest of majority or temporary social effects such as the demands of wartime.
The focus of Rawls’ theory is on ensuring those basic liberties in any situation, and providing
stability and coherence in people’s lives.
The two principles discussed in the previous section ought to ensure basic liberties for everyone
no matter what social situation they find themselves in and the changes that they will go
through in their lives. The principles govern the basic structure of society, such as its
constitution and its fundamental institutions. The principles do not apply in the private sphere
of individuals, such as the family life or private organizations. Rawls has been criticized for this
limitation by feminist philosophers such as Susan Moller Okin (1989), who argue that justice
and equality should have a place in family life as well. This issue has become controversial, as
Rawls returns to the question of family in “Idea of Public Reason Revised” (1997) and places the
family within the basic structure, making his principles apply to the family as well.
Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this issue in more detail.
Rawls puts the principles in order of lexical priority. The first principle has priority over the
second one, and point a in the second principle has a priority over point b. But more
importantly, Rawls says that lower principles must not interfere with the workings of the higher
principles. This means that even if the advantages to the second principle would be very high by
sacrificing some of the liberties protected under the first principle, the first principle and its
liberties must never be allowed to be sacrificed for the sake of the second principle. The same
applies to the point a and b within the second principle.
The first principle is designed to guarantee the basic liberties. Rawls mentions five sets of basic
liberties: liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, freedom of association, equal political
2
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 1.1: The Role of Justice, Harvard University
Press, p 3
9
liberties, the rights and liberties that protect the integrity and freedom of the person (including
freedom of occupation and choice of careers and a right to personal property), and finally the
rights and liberties covered by the rule of law 3. Economic liberties are protected under the
second principle.
The second principle is designed to guarantee the value of the basic liberties to every citizen, in
particular to the economically worst off. Freeman (2007) puts it this way:
“...The aim of the second principle is to guarantee the worth or value of the basic liberties for
everyone, particularly the economically least advantaged. It does so by insuring that everyone
has adequate all-purpose means (powers, opportunities, income, and wealth) needed to
exercise the basic liberties effectively”.4
According to Rawls, the second principle applies mainly to the distribution of income and
wealth, as well as to the design of institutions that make use of differences in authority and
power. He writes: “one applies the second principle by holding positions open, and then, subject
to this constraint, arranges social and economic inequalities so that everyone benefits”5. This
phrasing highlights the importance of fair equality of opportunity.
The fair equality of opportunity (FEO) principle says that no person should be given special
benefits based on inequalities caused by pure luck, such as luck of birth, natural endowment
and historical circumstances. In same manner, no person should be allowed to suffer
disadvantages based on these characteristics that he cannot control. It is only fair to treat
people differently based on differences among them if people themselves are responsible for
those differences. In particular, people who have similar talents and motivation to develop
them should have equal chances to obtain wealth and desirable positions in life.
3
Rawls J., [2005], “Political Liberalism”, New York: Columbia University Press, expanded edition, p 291
4
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 2: Liberalism, Democracy, and Justice, Routledge, p 60
5
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 1.11: Two Principles of Justice, Harvard
10
But FEO is not the same as luck egalitarianism, nor does it aim to transform society into a
meritocracy, as it can be interpreted to do so when taken as separate from the other principles.
Rawls only seeks to neutralize luck on distribution to the effect that factors such as class and
talent are arbitrary from the moral point of view. It is worth bearing in mind here Rawls’s
characteristic focus on representative groups of individuals. Once Rawls has advantaged a
particular group – such as the class of all unskilled manual labourers –justice is no longer
concerned with any further inequalities that arise within that class as a result of people’s
responsible or irresponsible choices. (Blake, 2008)
Rawls does not propose a set of principles as such, but rather a working system, parts of which
cannot be taken as separate from other parts. The same is true of fair equality of opportunity: it
should be understood in its proper relationship with the other principles. The ideal society that
Rawls attempts to show us is not one that is focused on economic efficiency or even on the
welfare of the least advantaged in a society. It is a society understood as cooperation between
free and equal individuals, who agree to share each other’s fate and take their responsibility as
a member of that society. The main point for Rawls is then to ensure that every citizen regards
him or herself as free and equal with respect to all other citizens, and is respected as such,
regardless of the differences between members of society. All the principles, including FEO, are
designed to ensure the basis of self-respect for citizens.
The main purpose of FEO is best summarized by Freeman (2007):
“...To provide citizens generally, not simply the more naturally talented, with the means to
develop and train their natural abilities so that they (a) can take full advantage of the range of
opportunities open to people with similar abilities, and (b) attain self-respect in their status as
equal citizens”. 6
6
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 2: Liberalism, Democracy, and Justice, Routledge, p 96
11
I will discuss the FEO principle and the way in which Rawls envisioned it to work in practice in
Chapter 3. In the next sub-chapter I will briefly describe the kind of society that Rawls thought
would rise from the application of his principles: that of a property-owning democracy.
2.3 Property owning democracy.
When Rawls published Justice as Fairness it was commonly thought that his previous work had
offered a justification for the capitalistic welfare state (CWS). It is an easy mistake to make,
since Rawls spends so much time in his book discussing the difference principle, rather than the
fair equality of opportunity (FEO) even though the latter has priority over the difference
principle.
But a CWS does not satisfy the FEO principle as it was discussed in Chapter 2.1. The goal of a
CWS is to provide every citizen with some means of existence, rather than to allow them to
maximally develop their natural capacities and develop self-respect as equal citizens. According
to Rawls, the type of society that does comply with FEO principle is either a form of market
socialism or a form of “property-owning democracy” (POD). A POD is a concept first discussed
by Meade (1993) in Liberty, Equality and Efficiency and later taken over by, among others,
Rawls.
Rawls considers market socialism and a POD both to be a good candidate for the economic
structure in a just society. The choice between them will depend on the particular historical and
economic circumstances of a given society. Rawls himself focuses more on the concept of a
POD however, since he thinks that it is a clearer and more familiar concept to the readers 7. I will
do the same here.
7
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 42: Economic Systems, Harvard University
Press, p 424
12
There are several interpretations of POD and the way it can be implemented, but the basic idea
remains the same. In a property-owning democracy there is no concentration of capital in a
capital-owning class and a part of income of all citizens is independent of their wage. Rawls
points out the purpose of a POD:
“… In a property-owning democracy the aim is to carry out the idea of society as a fair system of
cooperation over time among citizens as free and equal persons. Thus, basic institutions must
from the outset put in the hands of citizens generally, and not only of a few, the productive
means to be fully cooperating members of a society.”8
and
“… The background institutions of property-owning democracy, with its system of (workably)

competitive markets, tries to disperse the ownership of wealth and capital, and thus to prevent
a small part of society from controlling the economy and indirectly political life itself.” 9
The result is that people are not forced to work to make a living if they have other obligations
to for example their family, but may choose to work to supplement their income. Additionally,
since the total income is based on choice rather than necessity and there is no exploited class of
workers, there is a feeling of equality and mutual respect among citizens. The main purpose of
a POD is to prevent large concentrations of wealth and capital, and to make income less
dependent on wage.
One of the ways to implement a POD has been suggested by Freeman (2007) in Rawls10.
Freeman proposes to structure a POD to be a form of society where the economy is structured
8
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Preface for the Revised Edition, Harvard University
Press, p xv
9
Press, p xiv
10
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 3: The Second Principle and the Distributive Justice, Routledge, Taylor &
Francis e-Library.
13
to give all its workers more control over their working conditions and the means of production,
as well as ownership in firms they work in or other capital. This can be done by worker-
managed firms or a “share economy”, where workers own shares in their firms. Being a partial
owner and having a real voice in decisions made gives workers more bases for self-respect, as
well as provide them with knowledge and opportunities to obtain positions of power (within
their firms).
Some philosophers, such as Thomas (2012) 11 argue that not all firms in a society have to be
democratically managed: it is sufficient if a portion of them is. This would allow workers to
choose between more control in their workspace on one hand, and higher financial rewards
and less control at the other hand. I’m not fully convinced of the practicality of this idea. At
least in the modern world our lives have become complex enough that even when people are
provided with opportunities for self-governance, they do not use those opportunities. People
are already exhausted from the demands of daily life without taking on the challenges of
governing their work-places. I therefore believe that at least in our current modern world, few
people would chose to work in a democratically managed workplace, just like few chose to
become part of worker unions. Of course, in a POD situation may be entirely different. Life
might be less complex, there probably be more time for leisure and people will have more
physical and mental resources to spend on self-governance. There is no way of telling what the
mental state of a citizen of a POD would be. I therefore believe that for the system to work as
intended, all workplaces should be democratically managed, or a POD should be implemented
in some other manner than that proposed by Freeman. I agree with Freeman that allowing
firms to be worker-managed will give people more meaningful control over their lives, but only
if all firms in the society are worker-managed, therefore creating a culture of self-governance.
Within those companies, workers may choose the degree to which they are involved in
controlling their work-places. Within a self-governing culture, such a choice will be well-
informed and I believe that most, if not all people, would prefer to be involved, and the people
who would chose to forgo the benefits of meaningful control over their work-place due to
11
- Thomas A., [2012], “Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property Owning
Democracy”, Footnote 8, The Good Society 21, #1, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
14
personal circumstances would be a minority. In the modern world, where such a culture does
not exist and the opportunities for self-governance are few, more people chose the simplicity of
having no control and not having to spend the mental energy on thinking about it. They are ill-
informed about the benefits in terms of happiness and self-respect that self-governance could
bring them, and even considering such benefits, most people in the modern world where the
FEO principle is far from implemented have more pressing concerns: the rent or mortgage
needs to be paid. Self-governance without a culture of self-governance is a luxury that few can
afford.
In a POD the class of workers as a whole may have less income and wealth than in capitalistic
welfare state where a class of owners is specifically trained to make proper investment and
production decisions and where workers only labour for a wage. In CWS workers and the
unemployed alike are insured against misfortune, but they lack the opportunities and power to
participate in any major decision-making and have no means to control any part of the process
of production. But since in a POD workers have a much greater share of such primary goods as
bases of self-respect as equal citizens and means to control their own working conditions, the
total index of primary goods of the least advantaged in POD will exceed the index of primary
goods of the least advantaged in CWS who have more income. Dignity and self-respect are
things that are very hard to buy with money, though some have tried.
One thing deserves to be clarified here: in the previous sections of this paper I have spoken of
the least advantaged as a class of society, while when discussing POD the discussion has
seemingly shifted to the least advantaged workers. Surely the handicapped are even less
advantaged than the unskilled workers? The important thing to keep in mind here is that for
Rawls, a society is cooperation for mutual advantage between equal citizens based on
reciprocity on fair terms. Rawls deals with the handicapped and disabled separately, not under
distributive justice, but under remedial justice. It is out of scope of this paper to discuss this
issue in detail, but for an elaborative discussion see Freeman (2007) p 106-108.
15
In the next chapter I will look at the actual demands FEO poses on a society. The focus will be
on the degree of education availability demanded under FEO.
3. Fair equality of opportunity and education.
In this chapter I will focus on the working of fair equality of opportunity in an ideal society. I will
start with discussing the actual demands of the principle on an ideal society. Then I will discuss
the importance of education as part of FEO principle. In section 3.3 and 3.4 I will look at the
alternative view which considers education to fall under the Difference principle. To end this
chapter I will argue that FEO requires ongoing educational availability to be fully effective.
3.1 Actual demands of fair equality of opportunity principle on

society.
Rawls provides a definition of fair equality of opportunity (FEO) principle in his book A Theory of
Justice: “Those with similar abilities and skills should have similar life chances. More specifically,
assuming that there is a distribution of natural assets, those who are at the same level of talent
and ability, and have the same willingness to use them, should have the same prospects of
success regardless of their initial place in the social system. In all sectors of society there should
be roughly equal prospects of culture and achievement for everyone similarly motivated and
endowed. The expectations of those with the same abilities and aspirations should not be
affected by their social class”12.
As was discussed previously in Chapter 2.2 Rawls did not mean that all efforts should be spent
to help those who are talented, but socially disadvantaged, to compete on fair terms with their
more advantaged counterparts. Rawls is not advocating meritocracy. Rather, the FEO principle
should be seen as a part of total framework aimed at promoting the attainment of the bases of
12
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], ”A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 12: The Second Principle, Harvard
16
self-respect as equal citizens for every person, no matter how talented, and allowing every
person to fully develop their capacities in order to be able to take full advantage of all
opportunities available to people with similar talents.
Rawls mentions three institutional requirements that FEO imposes on a society, although he
implies that there are many more: universal healthcare 13, prevention of excessive accumulation
of wealth and property, and maintaining of equal opportunities of education for all 14. The
fulfillment of these requirements should ensure that all citizens have sufficient grounds for self-
respect and for respecting others.
In the next section I will look at the role that education plays in the FEO principle, but for now I
would like to consider what it means if in a society all citizens have sufficient grounds for self-
respect. In my view what FEO indirectly achieves in a society are reduction in envy between
citizens and lowering of the crime rate. It creates a safer and perhaps even a more tolerant
environment for everyone. When the wealth gap between members of a society is relatively
small and people have access to sufficient opportunities to improve their lot if necessary, there
are less reasonable cases for envy and nobody has to feel unjustly treated and take the justice
into their own hands be engaging in criminality.
If the FEO principle is also combined with a property-owning democracy (POD) as was discussed
in Chapter 2.2, then perhaps tolerance for unusual life-styles and manners in which people try
to find their path in life would be increased as well. If people have no necessity to work and the
social importance of material wealth is reduced, the choice of careers should be less
determined by wage and more by the satisfaction and space for self-development that those
careers offer. I also think that people who possess a lot of proper self-respect, as Rousseau puts
it, will be more accepting of others who have chosen a different path of life, as people with
proper self-respect will experience no emotional need to judge others in other to make
13
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 5: Just Institutions, Routledge, p 231
14
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 12: The Second Principle, Harvard
17
themselves feel superior and more worthy. In short, I believe that the proper implementation
of the FEO principle will lead to a more cooperative society.
3.2 The importance of education for the FEO principle.
When discussing property-owning democracy, Rawls highlights the importance of education for
the FEO principle:
“...On fair equality of opportunity secured by provisions for education and training”. 15
And as Freeman points out:
“Public funding of education is then a requirement of FEO. Rawls does not say this requires a
public school system, as opposed to public funding of private schools. Indeed, his writings imply
that a publicly funded and regulated but still entirely private educational system (for example, a
voucher system) would be compatible with FEO.”16
I believe that there is a very important reason why FEO can only succeed if education is
properly accessible for all and is of good quality. The reason is that FEO holds that not only
there should be an equality of opportunity on the job-market, or other instances of
competition, but also equality in opportunities to become qualified for such competitions.
While the society itself is a venture for mutual advantage, the job-market is not. It is a
competition between participants. And Rawls wanted to make that competition as fair as
possible. All competitors are free and equal citizens, therefore it should not matter for their
success chances if their parents had the money to send them to expensive schools. Parental
wealth is irrelevant from moral point of view. Rawls acknowledges that the family will always
15
Press, p xv
16
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 3: The Second Principle and Distributive Justice, Routledge, p 90
18
impact a person’s life-chances, but he wants to minimize the way in which the family’s social-
economic background is able to do so. Education is the most important tool for that, since it
both impacts our development as moral citizens and qualifies us for job-market contests.
I’m considering only the job-market here as an example of competition in society, since it is the
most basic of all contests. There is also for example competition on the housing market for
example, but one’s ability to obtain a mortgage largely depends on one’s income, and therefore
the job the person holds. It is also worth noting that Rawls’s egalitarian goals, throughout, are
to redress, not completely to eliminate, inequality.
Freeman points out that FEO is important in three ways, quoting Rawl’s A Theory of Justice, the
revised edition:
1. “...First, it is integral to the equal status of free and equal citizens. Like equal basic
liberties, FEO is one of the social bases of self-respect. To be excluded from social
positions on grounds of race, gender, religion, and so on, is an affront to one’s dignity as
an equal person and citizen.”17
2. “Second, people deprived of fair opportunities are “debarred from experiencing the
realization of self which comes from a skillful and devoted exercise of social duties [and
as such] would be deprived of one of the main forms of the human good” (TJ, 84/73
rev.). … The main idea is that FEO is essential to the adequate exercise and development
of our “higher capacities” (to use Mill’s term), including our capacities for productive
labor and for a sense of justice.”18
3. “A third main reason for fair opportunity is that it complements the difference principle.
“The role of the principle of fair opportunity is to insure that the system of cooperation
is one of pure procedural justice. Unless it is satisfied, distributive justice could not be
left to take care of itself” (TJ, 87/76 rev.). “19
17
18
19
Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Chapter 3: The Second Principle and Distributive Justice, Routledge, p 91-92
19
The first reason is very important to Rawls. Rawls’s entire theory is based on the conception of
citizens being free and equal, and being mutually respected as such. It is therefore important
that institutions in the society are designed to strengthen this mutual respect and provide
citizens with bases for self-respect.
Here I would like to focus on Freeman’s second point because it highlights the need for good
education under FEO. Good education and meaningful work (including unpaid work such as
volunteer activities) are two ways in which people can develop their “higher capacities”
according to Aristotelian Principle. Rawls invokes the Aristotelian Principle when discussing
what constitutes “the good” for a person. According to Rawls:
“… A person’s good is determined by the rational plan of life that he would choose with
deliberative rationality from the maximal class of plans.” 20
Rawls uses the Aristotelian Principle as a basic principle of motivation using which a rational
plan of life is created. According to Rawls, the Aristotelian Principle explains why we chose
certain activities over others, and certain plans of life over others. He then provides a
definition:
“... The Aristotelian Principle runs as follows: other things equal, human beings enjoy the
exercise of their realized capacities (their innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment
increases the more the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity. The intuitive idea here
is that human beings take more pleasure in doing something as they become more proficient at
it, and of two activities they do equally well, they prefer the one calling on a larger repertoire of
more intricate and subtle discriminations.” 21
20
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 65: The Aristotelian Principle, Harvard
21
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 65: The Aristotelian Principle, Harvard
20
Both education and meaningful work provide opportunities for people to discover where their
talents lie, as well as challenging activities in which they can participate. Thus both good
education and meaningful work would be chosen by citizens under the Aristotelian Principle in
creating their plans of life. Freeman rightly points out that debarring certain groups of people
from experiences which would help them develop themselves, with this exclusion based on
morally irrelevant characteristics, would be unjust.
Education is a key element of the FEO principle and I strongly believe that most questions of
how to organize education in society fall under the FEO principle. Rawls had intended his two
Principles to be applicable to every societal issue, including education. So when designing
institutions to deal with education, one should also follow the priority ranking of the two
Principles. I believe that the Equal Liberties Principle will offer no confusion, but confusion can
arise about which elements of education fall under the FEO and the Difference Principle. I will
look at this issue briefly in the two following sections.
3.3 An alternative: education under the Difference principle.
I think that it is important to stress that education falls foremost under the fair equality of
opportunity (FEO) principle, which takes priority over the Difference principle. Some authors,
such as Weitz (1993) have understood education to fall under the Difference principle. I think it
is worthwhile to consider her approach since she highlights why letting education be governed
by the Difference principle rather than by the FEO principle is likely to take us into wrong
direction. I find her position very interesting and I’m afraid I will not do it justice, but I will try to
briefly summarize it here.
Weitz (1993) asks herself how resources in education should be distributed, particularly with
regard to very talented children. She writes: “If you agree with Rawls that other distributions of
21
goods are contingent upon the arbitrary natural distribution, and that the development of
natural capacities is contingent upon education, how far are you willing to go to achieve justice
as fairness?”22
Weitz understands “justice as fairness” here as severely egalitarian ideology dominated by the
Difference principle, where equal distribution of wealth and resources is striven for. I have a
different interpretation of Rawls with regard to this particular point and I will come back to this
later.
Weitz then appeals to the pedagogical theory of Dewey: “Dewey assumes that equality in a
democratic society ought to mean that it offers all individuals equally the chance for self-
fulfillment, or the opportunity for their "pursuit of happiness."23 She argues that talented
individuals have the same right to self-fulfilment as untalented individuals, even if allowing
talents to develop will not directly benefit the worst off students. To prove her point, Weitz
puts forth a thought experiment: let us imagine that there is a surgery that can permanently
reduce intelligence. Weitz then continues to show that such a surgery would be unacceptable
to most of us, while for some reason Rawls’ proposal, which according to Weitz has the same
purpose, seems to be morally acceptable. Weitz claims that by systematically refusing
resources to the talented, we thereby lower their actual intelligence as compared to potential
intelligence in a similar fashion as the surgery would. I find that she makes a valid point.
Weitz concludes with an argument on the sanctity of personal identity: “Inherent qualities, such
as talents and abilities, form the essential nature of the individual. Consequently, when a
person' s potential capacities are not fully realized, because they have been deliberately
neglected or denied resources, one is not merely reducing that individual's assets and
redistributing them in the same way as if they were material holdings, you are distorting the
22
Weitz B. A., [1993], “Equality and justice in education: Dewey and Rawls”, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Human
Studies 16, p 421
23
Studies 16, p 422
22
nature of his or her individuality.”24 Considering the issue in this manner, people do have right
to their talents and the benefits they receive from the exercise of them, since those talents
make people who they are.
I find Weitz’s critique very powerful and I think that she is absolutely right in showing that
letting the matters of education be governed by the Difference principle might have some far
reaching unintended results. But as I have said before, I think that education is governed by the
FEO principle instead for two reasons.
First, FEO has priority over the Difference principle, so any field of public life should first comply
with the FEO principle and only after that, with the Difference principle if applicable. In the
Preface to the Revised Edition of A Theory of Justice Rawls writes: “I continue to think the
difference principle important and would still make the case for it, taking for granted … an
institutional background that satisfies the two preceding principles.”25
Second, as was discussed in Chapter 2.1, the Difference principle is adopted in the original
position in order to allow inequalities in the society which will benefit all members of the
society. Since the key idea in Rawls is that a society is a co-operative venture for mutual
advantage between free and equal individuals, I doubt that any free and equal individual in the
original position would limit the liberty of another equally free and equal individual to develop
themselves. The Difference principle was never intended to do that.
Another point is that talents and the matters of individual nature are morally arbitrary from the
point of view of justice as intended by Rawls. The justice that Rawls talks about is not criminal
or individual justice, but social justice. It is the justice of an entire society and the way in which
it is constituted. Rawls looks at justice as rules which govern the association between free and
24
Studies 16, p 429
25
Press, p xiv
23
equal members of a cooperative venture for mutual advantage. From this perspective, it is not
the individuality of persons that matters, but the way in which they cooperate with each other
and the manner in which the burdens and rewards of that cooperation are distributed.
Therefore I believe that this point of critique of Weitz, while very powerful and worthy of
further consideration, is misplaced.
In the next section I will attempt to provide an example of how resources in education can be
distributed to fit the FEO principle and Rawls’ ideals.
3.4 A modest proposition on resource distribution in education.
In this section I would like to return to the question posed by Weitz, namely how to distribute
resources in education between talented and untalented children. This question ought to be
dealt with from the perspective of the FEO principle, while the question of how tuition or
scholarships ought to be distributed between the poor and the rich children is an issue that falls
under the distributive justice of the Difference principle. It would be out of scope of this paper
to discuss the second issue.
Rawls writes:
“First we may observe that the difference principle gives some weight to the considerations
singled out by the principle of redress. This is the principle that undeserved inequalities call for
redress; and since inequalities of birth and natural endowment are undeserved, these
inequalities are to be somehow compensated for. Thus the principle holds that in order to treat
all persons equally, to provide genuine equality of opportunity, society must give more attention
to those with fewer native assets and to those born into the less favorable social positions. The
idea is to redress the bias of contingencies in the direction of equality. In pursuit of this principle
24
greater resources might be spent on the education of the less rather than the more intelligent,
at least over a certain time of life, say the earlier years of school (emphasis added).”26
Weitz is right in saying that what Rawls proposes here is to spend more resources on the
education of less talented and subsequently less resources on the talented children, at least in
the earlier years of school. Rawls has a very good reason for advocating a certain minimum
benchmark of development:
“Equally if not more important is the role of education in enabling a person to enjoy the culture
of his society and to take part in its affairs, and in this way to provide for each individual a
secure sense of his own worth.”27
As discussed before, Rawlsian society is a co-operative venture for mutual advantage between
free and equal citizens. Those citizens are not equal because they are uniform in their abilities,
or are an army of clones. Those citizens are equal because they regard and respect each other
as such, because every single one of them has sufficient reasons to feel worthy and to feel like a
contributing member of the society. Without any one of them, the society would be worse off.
And education is for Rawls one of the key institutions to achieve this.
It is also important to note what Rawls says about the principle of redress, which would argue
against the interpretation of education being governed by the Difference principle:
“Now the principle of redress has not to my knowledge been proposed as the sole criterion of
justice, as the single aim of the social order. It is plausible as most such principles are only as a
prima facie principle, one that is to be weighed in the balance with others.” 28
26
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 17: The Tendency to Equality, Harvard
27
28
25
I would once again like to stress the point I have made in previous section: Rawls puts the FEO
principle as prior to the Difference principle for a reason. This means that the role of education
is not to redress the unequal distribution of natural assets, but to provide all citizens with
sufficient opportunities to obtain sufficient bases of self-respect to participate in public life as
free and equal citizens. This, in turn, allows the development of their two moral powers.
Rawls argues that free and equal citizens have two capacities, which he calls the moral powers:
reasonabless and rationality. The two moral powers warrant the treatment of citizens as equals
and respected as subjects of justice. Being reasonable for Rawls is a moral capacity for justice,
enabling citizens to cooperate with others on terms which are fair, and an understanding of
fairness and justice. A person is considered to be rational when he or she has the power to
form, revise, and to rationally pursue a coherent conception of values, and an ability to form an
idea about a good life. According to Rawls, the assumption that people have two moral powers
is not the same as an idea of a “self” that any of those individuals may possess. Rather, the fact
that we assume other people to have those powers allows us to hold them responsible for their
actions and provides a base on which we may chose to cooperate with them. Without those
two moral powers, the society would not be able to function, as it would no longer be a co-
operation for mutual advantage. Basically, the whole of Rawls’ theory hinges on the concept of
the two moral powers and their proper development29.
For the society to work as Rawls envisioned, the two moral powers must first be properly
developed by all citizens and then properly maintained. The maintenance occurs through the
fairness of the basic structure, which are designed to reinforce the feelings of mutual respect
among citizens. The development of the two moral powers occurs through education. This
creates for Rawls a sort of minimum benchmark of education and development required to
participate. It is the role of the education to ensure that every single citizen meets these
criteria. It is therefore of utmost importance to focus resources on children that risk failing to
29
Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Chapter 77: The Basis of Equality, Harvard
University Press, p 441- 449
26
meet that criteria and who are in danger of being left out of public life in the future, such as the
less talented children. I believe that this is what Rawls meant when he said that more resources
ought to be spent on less talented children, at least in the early years of their development.
Once full participation in society is ensured for all children, we enter a stage where spending
more resources on the development of the less talented children, and therefore less resources
on the development of the talented ones, is no longer necessary. In this stage, the distribution
could in fact be anything. To discover the best distribution however, all we have to do is to
return to the original position with regard to this particular question.
Here I would like to return to the identity argument made by Weitz (1993) 30 and discussed in
the previous section. I believe that the parties in the original position, in this case being the
talented and less talented children, would very much agree that every single one of them
deserves to develop their talents and to have the opportunity to develop themselves to the
maximum. I do not believe that any party in the original position could reasonably deny another
party (and thus possibly themselves) the opportunity to develop as an individual. I therefore
believe that under the conditions of the veil of ignorance, the representatives would chose to
distribute the resources between the two groups in a way that would allow each to reach their
maximum potential. I believe that the fair equality of opportunity would be chosen.
To my knowledge, there is nothing in Rawls’s work that speaks against this interpretation. What
Rawls does criticize is the idea of spending more resources on the development of the talented
children with the hopes that eventually, the benefits will “tickle-down” to the less fortunate
ones:
“But if we give any weight to the more fortunate, we are valuing for their own sake the gains to
those already more favored by natural and social contingencies. No one had an antecedent
30
Studies 16, p 429
27
claim to be benefited in this way, and so to maximize a weighted mean is, so to speak, to favor
the more fortunate twice over.”31
I therefore believe that my interpretation is consistent with Rawls and his general theory of
society. As for the more exact distribution of resources in education, I think that equal or close
to equal distribution of resources between talented and untalented children after the initial
criteria of minimum development have been met in order to fully participate in society and
public life for all children. I include the possibility of close to equal distribution because I believe
that talented children may need fewer resources for development than less talented, as the
talented may be using those resources in a more efficient manner. Therefore I see a distribution
where for example 60% of the resources go to the less talented children as just as well, if such a
distribution will allow both groups to fully develop themselves.
In the next section I will go a step further and argue that to fully implement the FEO principle
and to allow all social groups to develop themselves, we need to have optional education at any
stage in a person’s life.
3.5 Ongoing fair access to education under the FEO principle.
I have already briefly argued in the previous sections why education is so important under the
fair equality of opportunity (FEO) principle. In this section I would like to go a step further and
argue that fair ongoing access to education is required under FEO. Another argument for this
claim will be given in later chapters when I will consider property-owning democracy (POD) in
more detail. For now, I would like to explain what exactly I mean with fair ongoing access to
education and why I think that Rawls had intended fair ongoing access to education under the
FEO principle.
31
28
I will be taking the Netherlands as an example to argue my point. Due to highly stratified
education in the Netherlands, fair ongoing access to education only becomes an issue in higher
education. I’m aware that this system is unique in the world and that other societies have to
deal with citizens who have not been able to finish high school. While I will be talking about
higher education in the Netherlands, since this system is the most familiar to me, I would like to
point out that my arguments should be applicable to the high school systems elsewhere as well.
In the Netherlands, young students still receive government grants and cheap study-loans when
they enter higher education. At least, they do at the time I’m writing this and due to recent and
proposed budget cuts, this situation is likely to change. In effect this offers students from all
backgrounds an opportunity to obtain one bachelor and one master degree for free or at
heavily reduced costs. There are two notable exemptions from this rule. Only people below the
age of 30 are eligible for the grants and in case a student has made a mistake in choosing his
major, he will have to pay the full (subsidized) tuition fee for the lost year, or study harder to
catch up the time lost. The current proposals on the governments table suggest that we can
expect high increase in the cost of the first master degree and no more subsidies for the second
master degree for students, which would in some cases raise the tuition fee by as much as
thirty times. There is also a system to abolish the grants system entirely and replace it by a form
of social debt system.
I would like to point out that Rawls would probably approve of the current system in the
Netherlands. It is far from perfect or just, but it does comply with his theory of justice to a
certain point. Noticeably, it complies with the FEO principle up to a point, since at this very
moment, it still permits students from any background to attend at their university of choice for
free or at very low cost. But the Dutch society is not a Rawlsian society, as Dutch society is
governed mostly by the considerations of economic efficiency and past welfare values. In
offering higher education free for people below age of 30, the Dutch government assumes that
the society as whole will later benefit from these students: for example, in increases in taxes
29
paid. Naturally, their assumptions are often wrong, as very rich Dutch people can settle just
across the border in Belgium where taxes are much lower. This reduces the pay-off for the
society to offer free higher education and is perhaps what is leading the current trend of
reducing the social accessibility of higher education in the Netherlands.
It is understandable from the standpoint of economic efficiency to only offer grants to the
youngsters, since the society then can benefit from such an investment over a period of 30-40
years. It is however less understandable from the point of justice. True, society according to
Rawls is a cooperative venture for mutual benefit. This benefit can only be acquired if every
person does their part and if there are at least some considerations of economic efficiency. But
this ignores the very basis upon which the society is created and holds: its free and equal
citizens. And this equality is not simply formal. Rawls strives to create institutions which will
enforce the status of every citizen as free and equal, since this will stabilize the entire system
and make it work over time. This also impact the way that higher education is organized.
There are many reasons in a society governed by the principle of economic efficiency, even
diluted with welfare idealism, to limit fair access to education to young people below the age of
30. Undoubtedly Robert Nozick would be the first to argue that no sane taxpayer will pay for a
80 year old person to attend university. I will not list all these objections here. But this is exactly
what both FEO and Rawls’s account of free and equal citizens requires. But I have emphasized
that Rawls’s view is not about efficiency alone.
What does it mean to be a free and equal citizen? I believe that it means two things. First, that
morally irrelevant characteristics will not determine your life chances (FEO is designed to
prevent just this). Second, that every citizen has right to some bases of self-respect.
Is age a morally relevant characteristic for an adult? I believe it is not. The age limit of 30 for
education grants for example is a limit set by politicians and this limit is random. It could have
been 25 or 35 for that matter. Rawls provides us with a tool to determine which characteristics
30
are morally relevant: the veil of ignorance. Under the conditions of the veil of ignorance the
representatives do not know their age. What would happen if we would put the question of age
limit of grants before them? Certainly, some would argue that the principle of economic
efficiency has some weight. But I believe that most would agree that being free and equal
citizens also means that one remains to be an equal citizen as one ages. An 80 years old
grandmother is from this perspective no less equal than an 18 year old high school graduate.
If one were to consider the issue of fair ongoing access to education from the perspective of
veil of ignorance, I doubt that any representative would find compelling reasons to limit access
to education to another free and equal citizen based on age. People have many reasons due to
which they could become unable to attend university in their young years, such as becoming a
parent, or having to take care of an ill family member. Representatives in the original position
recognize that each one of us has certain obligations towards other people and that some of
these obligations could severely limit our available time. Is that something that we should be
held morally accountably for from the standpoint of justice? I believe that this is exactly where
the FEO comes into play. Certain groups of citizens, most notably women who often have to
take on these caring duties, should not be excluded from full opportunities simply because they
have freely or under pressure taken on carer’s duties. As was discussed before, FEO principle
demands that citizens are given fair opportunities to compete with each other and to quality
(thus receive education to qualify), regardless of their gender and whether or not they can
afford to outsource the carer’s duties.
It is therefore crucial that fair access to education is granted to every citizen under the FEO
principle, rather than only a formal access. I will later come back to discuss in more detail what
fair ongoing access to education would mean in practice. Not doing so would be to ignore the
status of women and others burdened with carer’s duties as fair and equal citizens, and would
not provide every citizen with a fair equality of opportunity to receive education, and
subsequently compete on fair terms with others on the job-market.
31
The second reason I have mentioned is that every citizen should have sufficient basis for self-
respect to be seen and to regard himself as free and equal. Rawls stresses this point himself:
“… Equally if not more important is the role of education in enabling a person to enjoy the
culture of his society and to take part in its affairs, and in this way provide for each individual a
secure sense of his own worth.”32
And,
“We must when necessary take into account the primary good of self-respect . . . The confident
sense of their own self-worth should be sought for the least favored and this limits the forms of
hierarchy and the degrees of inequality that justice permits. Thus, for example, resources for
education are not to be allotted solely or necessarily mainly according to their return as
estimated in productive trained abilities, but also according to their worth in enriching the
personal and social lives of citizens, including here the least favored.”33
I believe that a person who has successfully finished university would have more basis for self-
respect than a person who would wish to attend university, but has been unable to do so.
Rawls strives to create a certain life-world for the citizens of his just society, a world in which
people are able to genuinely participate in their society if they wish. This participation requires
the bases of self-respect, which in turn require fair opportunities. Some may argue that
attending high school should provide citizens with sufficient bases of self-respect and that it is
not the task of the society to promote self-respect any further. I do not believe that this is
correct. High school teaches us how to function in our society, higher education teaches us how
to understand it. I believe that those are fundamentally different and genuine participation in
society requires a high degree of understanding. When one participates in public life, it is not
32
33
32
sufficient to have opinions. One should also have learned how to be reasonable and come to an
understanding with others. Additionally, higher education provides education more tailored to
the needs of individual citizen, permitting him to discover own talents and weaknesses.
My interpretation is more egalitarian than the interpretations of S. Freeman and A. Thomas,

who interpret Rawls as mainly to be creating a just social-political structure for a liberal society.
Perhaps they are right, as Rawls places the principle of Equal Liberties as the first principle. I
genuinely believe that Rawls is indeed creating such a structure, but this structure is merely a
tool towards a larger goal: an egalitarian society which keeps its egalitarianism from going to
the extremes by applying to justice and liberty. Our interpretations are all moderate, so the
differences could be slight, but this point is perhaps worth to keep in mind.
I will now briefly discuss an issue mentioned previously: how would fair ongoing access to
education look like? I believe that fair ongoing access to education would mean access to
education at any time in one’s life, with equal costs and opportunities. This would then take on
the form of vouchers, to be spent only on higher education and not tradable in for money or
other benefits. Vouchers would enable the poor students to attend higher education as well, as
well as allow people with carer’s duties to attend higher education once those carer’s duties
have been taken care of. If vouchers are not used upon death, a portion of the funds can be
transferred to the deceased’s children for example. Also, the vouchers should cover a certain
minimum of living expenses, as well as tuition, otherwise the system will not be providing fair
equality of opportunity to the poor. Education does not merely cost a citizen tuition fee and
books. It also costs wages forgone. Therefore this cost also has to be supplemented for the
voucher system to be effective. Needless to say, this cost can (or perhaps even should) only be
provided for those who lack own income, have poor parents or cannot rely upon their parents.
The vouchers should cover one bachelor education, one master education and one “mistake”
year or provide a discount for that year, to allow students to change their major in case they
have chosen wrong. I believe that it is unreasonable to expect high school graduates to be
33
capable of making perfect choices the consequences of which will fundamentally impact their
lives.
In the next chapter I will argue for the ongoing fair access to education from the standpoint of
property-owning democracy (POD), where human capital can play crucial part.
4. Education in property-owning democracy.
One of the key elements of a property-owning democracy (POD) as discussed in Chapter 2.3 is
the wide dispersion of capital. Capital includes not only physical capital such as land and
equipment, but also human capital such as labour, and intangible capital such as knowledge
and brand names. Human capital refers to a set of skills that workers acquire through education
and working experience.
There are many ways in which capital, including human capital, is distributed and redistributed
in a POD in order to prevent a small part of society from controlling the economical and
political life. Progressive income taxes, shares in worker-owned firms, fiscal regulations around
bequests and many other mechanisms can be applied to create a POD.
One of these mechanisms is education. Education is an important method of increasing human

capital. The other way would be to structure jobs in such a way as to allow the maximum
learning experience on the job. I think that education in this sense would be easier to
implement, as most societies already have the basic structures needed for it in place. As was
discussed in the previous chapter, education is also a key element to fair equality of
opportunity. The FEO Principle already requires society to provide adequately funded and free
public education system, so this way of providing human capital will already be ready for
implementation on large scale in a POD.
34
In a POD, the provision of good education could be a very good way of distributing capital.
Receiving good education could teach citizens how to make proper choices, leading to less
waste in resources and capital. It could also promote the values needed to sustain the POD in
the future, teaching citizens to consider the long-term perspective and the benefits to all
members of society, rather than only looking at the immediate gains. Additionally, it is easier
for an individual citizen to re-invest in education in order to increase own assets if he chooses
to do so, than for example to invest into a business or start their own. And education yields
higher productive assets for the entire society than for example investments in housing market
would be. I’m not saying that citizens should re-invest all their assets into education, but merely
that a portion of assets should be invested into education by entire society and that citizens
should be provided with genuine opportunity to further invest into education if they chose to
do so.
As Thomas (2012) points out in his paper, an increased supply in skilled labour would also make
workers “less vulnerable to exploitation in the labour market, with the overall effect that
residual incentives are transformed into compensatory incentives.” 34 Increase in supply of
skilled labour in combination of decreased dependency of income on wages would force the
employers to make jobs more attractive to people and increase the wages for most unattractive
jobs.
Perhaps the overall wealth of the society as measured by material goods would decline, as
more people would chose leisure time over increased income from wages, but I believe that
such a result may very well be a very good outcome. The current consumption culture is
unsustainable and the environmental concerns are pressing. Health problems from stress and
overwork are also becoming increasingly common in our modern day of age. While I’m cautious
to advocate anything in the extreme conservative spirit, a POD society as discussed by Meade
and later by Rawls with a focus on human capital may have some great merit.
34
Thomas A., [2012], “Cohen’s Critique of Rawls: A Double Counting Objection”, http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/,
accessed on 21 March 2012, p 33.
35
There have been many proposals on how best to implement a POD and how the wide
dispersion of capital would look like in practice. Most of them come down to giving people a
stake in owning their house or shares in firms that they work in, or in firms of the entire
national economy. As Thomas already pointed out, there is an important issue with these
proposals that should not be overlooked:
“… Since, realistically, all that can be meant by an expanded property-owning democracy is

either giving people a stake in owning their own housing or owning more shares, we are simply
exposing everyone to the risks of the next financial crisis. It is salutary to note that the current
financial crisis originated in politically motivated proposals to extend home ownership to those
with poor credit ratings, in other words, a failed attempt at wider capitalisation. The problem,
then, is this: capitalizing every citizen simply increases everyone’s exposure to the volatility of
the stock market.”35
Thomas himself already points towards education as a possible solution to the issue of stock
market vulnerability, although he considers a special-purpose fund based on the expansion of
pension system to be a better choice:
“… This view significantly underestimates the role played in a property-owning democracy by

human capital. It ignores the way in which the operation of the principle of equality of
opportunity requires the development of high levels of educated skills. So a property-owning
democracy is not just about home ownership and share ownership.”36
My proposal is to provide ongoing fair access to education for all citizens of the society. I have
already made a case for it when discussing the FEO principle, but ongoing fair access to
35
Thomas A., [2012], “Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property Owning Democracy”,
The Good Society 21, #1, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, p 18
36
Thomas A., [2012], “Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property Owning Democracy”,
The Good Society 21, #1, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, p 18
36
education is even more important when considering property-owning democracy. I do not
intend my proposal to compete with other proposals, as pretty much every proposal considers
education to some degree. Instead, I would like to stress the importance of education and its
accessibility.
Education, unlike housing market and share ownership, does not depend on the stock market.
It is a resource that can be obtained and upgraded regardless of the state of the economy. Of
course, in our modern economies public spending on among other education are the first ones
to be hit in the crisis, but this does not need to be the case if the ongoing fair access to
education is guaranteed to every citizen. To reduce spending on education is something that a
modern society chooses to do, it is not a law of nature. Providing citizens with this resource
gives them a certain degree of self-respect (and the corresponding self-confidence and
entrepreneurship) as well as an inalienable resource that they can always fall back on. Their
houses and stocks may become worthless, but an educated person will never lose the value and
the opportunities that his mind provides to him.
One can argue that in our times knowledge does not mean much, as it becomes increasingly
obsolete in the ever faster moving world. I disagree: certainly, this critique applies a lot to what
we learn in high schools, since all we learn there are facts which later do become obsolete. But
this is not the case for higher education such as universities, which teach their students certain
skills, worldviews and manners in which to consider things. I believe that this type of knowledge
transforms a person and therefore cannot become obsolete. People never become obsolete,
their skills do. And it takes certain courage and determination for a person to admit where his
skills need improvements and do something about it. I believe that people who have enjoyed
higher education are more capable of doing that, than those who have only finished high
schools and did not have to face the hard choice of their majors and classes to follow. I believe
that higher education makes people more resilient to life. And in a way, that is a very important
resource.
37
One can say that such an argument is overly paternalistic, but putting my sentiments aside, I’m
only arguing for the fair provision of access to higher education for everyone. It is a choice that
every person should be free to make, regardless of their social-economic circumstances or their
gender. Human capital should take a central role in POD, as it is the resource that becomes
increasingly important in the modern global world, as well as a resource that is more resistant
to the fluctuations of the global markets. Proper education of citizens will not only allow POD to
exist through time, but also to move forward and innovate. Additionally, distribution of human
capital as education is consistent with Rawls theory that all citizens should receive education
and develop their capabilities to the maximum in order to fully enjoy public life.
Providing people with vouchers for education will allow them to better qualify for various
positions and since the basic structure for such a proposal would already be in place in a society
due to the implementation of the FEO principle, increasing human capital would also be the
easiest and perhaps even cheapest way for the society to implement a POD. I therefore believe
that any proposal about a possible implementation of a POD should start with considering
education, and only afterwards all other aspects of a POD.
5. Conclusion.
In this paper I have argued for the importance of fair ongoing access to education for Rawlsian
egalitarian state. Fair ongoing access to education would provide all citizens with a right and
means to follow higher education regardless of the citizens’ age or situation. This could take
form of vouchers which would not be tradable, or could be turned in for other advantages, and
would allow the bearer to enjoy one bachelor and one master education free of charge, and
have a “mistake” year at free or nearly free of charge as well. Additionally I would like to
mention that such vouchers should be able to work if the citizen in question would chose to
study part time and should also cover some basic living expenses, as attending higher education
38
also bears a cost to the citizen in the form of wages forgone. Naturally, the system does not
need to aid the living expenses of the wealthy citizens.
I have argued that it is important to have such a voucher system, which is separate from other
proposals around the implementation of property-owning democracy (POD). Citizens should
not be able to trade in the vouchers to obtain other benefits, since educating its citizens is very
beneficial to the society as whole. First of all, education is independent of the stock market and
is therefore a resource which is less likely to be hit by a financial crisis. Second, wide dispersion
of human capital through education is easier for a society to achieve, since the basic institutions
to do so are already in place due to the application of the fair equality of opportunity principle.
This is of great importance for a property-owning democracy where wide distribution of capital
is a key goal, and fair ongoing access to education in combination with other measures is likely
to achieve this. Finally, education helps the system of justice as fairness to reproduce and
stabilize over time. I believe that people have to be educated to be just and to respect others as
free and equal citizens. Proper education can help achieve this in a more direct manner than
background institutions do.
I have also argued that fair ongoing access to education is crucial for the full implementation of
the fair equality of opportunity (FEO) principle. The FEO principle, when interpreted as a part of
a working system together with other principles, has two fundamental demands. The first one
is that every single citizen must have the opportunities to develop his two moral powers to the
degree that he can participate in the public life, be a free and equal member of the society, and
respect other citizens as such. This means that there is a certain minimum benchmark of
development that every single citizen must achieve with the highest support from the entire
society. In this sense, no single person is left behind (otherwise they would not be truly equal).
The second demand of the FEO principle is that every person with similar talents and ambitions
to exercise those talents, should be able to fully make use of all opportunities available for
people with his talents and ambitions. This is not the same as careers open to talents. What the
FEO principle intends is to allow all citizens to fully develop their talents and capacities and
39
become qualified to compete with each other fairly. This means that a person from the most
unfortunate background should have roughly equal life-chances as a person with similar talents
and desire to use them but who was born in a wealthy and powerful family. Rawls
acknowledges that no fair and just system can fully mitigate the influence of one’s family, but in
a fair and just society, one’s life-chances should not depend on such a morally irrelevant fact.
The FEO principle (in combination with other principles) thus places certain demands upon the
society, such as among others universal healthcare, wide dispersion of capital and power, and
good and accessible education. Rawls did not specify whether he meant high school education
or all stages of education, therefore I have tried to argue in this paper that fair ongoing access
to education is a demand of FEO. One could argue that high school education is sufficient for
citizens to develop their moral powers and that the FEO principle should end there, but there
are other reasons why the FEO principle continues to place educational demands upon the
society after all its citizens have graduated from high school. Personally I am certain that Rawls
would have argued for the maximum provisions possible for education that a society can bear,
but since my paper is focused on a less than perfect society I have put forth a minimal proposal
that ought to satisfy the FEO principle.
I believe that the FEO principle requires provisions for higher education for multiple reasons.
First, Rawls’s entire system is based upon the concept of free and equal citizens, and the need
for sufficient bases for self-respect for the citizens to respect each other as such. As I have
argued in this paper, being denied the opportunity to discover and develop one’s talents in a
specialized higher education due to socially-economic reasons greatly reduces one’s bases of
self-respect. In such situation people are justified in feeling unjustly treated, since their socially-
economic situation is morally irrelevant from the point of view of justice. Second, in the original
position, no free and equal citizen would deny another free and equal citizen the opportunity to
develop themselves. This would contradict the concept of “free and equal”. Third, the FEO
principle demands that every citizen receives opportunities to qualify for contests with other
citizens, regardless of their circumstances. Most of such contests, such as for example the job-
40
market, require competitors for higher positions to have attended higher education. Forth,
other morally irrelevant characteristics, such as age (concerning adults), and gender and the
corresponding carer’s duties, should not determine one’s life-prospects. Once again, looking at
the issue from the original position, these characteristics should not make a citizen less equal
than others. The FEO principle applies regardless of one’s age or gender. Finally, Rawls points
out that one of the tasks of education is the enrichment of people’s lives 37. This is a task set
apart for specialized education and is much less suitable for the general education such as
provided by high schools.
Concluding, the FEO principle and the POD have a lot to say in favour of any form of fair
ongoing education. I therefore believe that any proposal for implementing a POD should
include a serious proposal on how to structure education and access to education for all
citizens.
6. Literature List:
- Beachamp T. L., [1982, 2001], “Philosophical Ethics: an Introduction to Moral Philosophy”, Third edition,
McGraw-Hill Higher Education
- Blake M. and Risse M., [2008], “Two Models of Equality and Responsibility”, Canadian Journal of
Philosophy, Vol. 38, No. 2, p 165 – 199
- Cahn M. S., [2005], “Political Philosophy: the Essential Texts”, Oxford University Press, p 274 - 277
- Freeman S., [2007], “Rawls”, Routledge, Taylor & Francis e-Library
- Meade J. E., [1993], “Liberty, Equality and Efficiency”, Nes York University Press.
- Okin S. M., [1989], “Justice, Gender, and the Family”, New York: Basic Books
- Rawls J., [1971, 1999], “A Theory of Justice”, Revised Edition, Harvard University Press.
- Rawls J., [1997], “Idea of Public Reason Revised”, The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 3, p.
765-807
- Rawls J., [2005], “Political Liberalism”, New York: Columbia University Press, expanded edition
- Thomas A., [2012], “Cohen’s Critique of Rawls: A Double Counting Objection”,
http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/, accessed on 21 March 2012.
- Thomas A., [2012], “Rawls, Adam Smith, and an Argument From Complexity To Property Owning
Democracy”, The Good Society 21, #1, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
- Weitz B. A., [1993], “Equality and justice in education: Dewey and Rawls”, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Human Studies 16, p 421-434
37
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Fair Equality of

Name: Olia Fjodorowa, MSc.

2. The theory of a Rawlsian egalitarian society.

2.1 From the original position to the two principles of justice.

2.2 The two principles of justice as fairness.

The main purpose of FEO is best summarized by Freeman (2007):

2.3 Property owning democracy.

“… The background institutions of property-owning democracy, with its system of (workably)

3. Fair equality of opportunity and education.

3.1 Actual demands of fair equality of opportunity principle on

3.2 The importance of education for the FEO principle.

And as Freeman points out:

3.3 An alternative: education under the Difference principle.

3.4 A modest proposition on resource distribution in education.

3.5 Ongoing fair access to education under the FEO principle.

My interpretation is more egalitarian than the interpretations of S. Freeman and A. Thomas,

4. Education in property-owning democracy.

One of these mechanisms is education. Education is an important method of increasing human

“… Since, realistically, all that can be meant by an expanded property-owning democracy is

“… This view significantly underestimates the role played in a property-owning democracy by

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